Assassin's Quest tft-3

by Robin Hobb

  Then, with an insight worthy of the stone game, I knew what to do. Rather than attempt to seize him, I surrounded him. I made no effort to invade or capture, but simply to encompass all that I saw of him and hold it separate from harm. It reminded me of when I had first been learning to Skill. Often Verity had done this for me, helping me contain myself when the current of the Skill threatened to spill me wide to the world. I steadied the Fool as he gathered himself back into himself.

  I suddenly felt a cool clasping of my wrist. "Stop it," he begged gently. "Please," he added, and it smote me that he thought he needed that word. I withdrew from my seeking and opened my eyes. I blinked a few times, and then was surprised to find myself shivering with the cold sweat that cloaked me. It was impossible for the Fool to look any paler than he always was, but there was a tentative look to his eyes and mouth, as if he were not sure he was awake. My eyes met his, and I felt almost a jolt of awareness of him. A Skill-bond, thin as a thread, but there. Had not my nerves been so raw from reaching after him, I probably would not have felt it at all.

  "I did not like that," he said quietly.

  "I am sorry," I told him gently. "I thought they had hold of you, so I went seeking you."

  He waved a hand feebly. "Oh, not you. I meant the others." He swallowed as if sickened. "They were within me. In my mind, in my memories. Smashing and befouling like evil, lawless children. They…" His eyes went glassy.

  "Was it Burl?" I suggested gently.

  "Ah. Yes. That is his name, though he scarce remembers it himself these days. Will and Regal have taken him over for their own uses. They came through him into me, thinking they had found you…" His voice dwindled off. "Or so it seems. How could I know such a thing?"

  "The Skill brings strange insights. They cannot overcome your mind without showing much of their own," Kettle informed him grudgingly. She took a small pot of steaming water off the brazier. To me she added, "Give me your elfbark."

  I immediately reached for my pack to dig it out, but I could not resist asking her chidingly, "I thought you said this herb was not beneficial."

  "It isn't," she said tersely. "For Skill users. But for him, it may give him the protection he cannot provide for himself. They will try this again, I do not doubt. If they can invade him, even for a moment, they will use him to find you. It is an old trick."

  "One I have never heard of," I pointed out as I handed her my bag of elfbark. She shook some into a cup, and added boiling water. Then she calmly put my bag of herbs into her pack. It was obviously not an oversight, and I dismissed as useless asking for them back.

  "How do you know so much about Skill matters?" the Fool asked her pointedly. He was recovering some of his spirit.

  "Perhaps I learned by listening instead of asking personal questions all the time," she snapped at him. "Now, you are going to drink this," she added, as if she regarded the topic as settled. If I had not been so anxious, it would have been humorous to see the Fool so deftly quelled.

  The Fool took the cup but looked over at me. "What was that, that happened at the last? They held me, and then suddenly, it was all earthquake and flood and fire at once." He knit his brow. "And then I was gone, scattered. I could not find myself. Then you came…"

  "Would anyone care to explain to me what has happened this night?" Kettricken asked a bit testily.

  I half expected Kettle to answer but she kept silent.

  The Fool lowered his mug of tea. "It is a hard thing to explain, my queen. Like two ruffians bursting into your bedchamber, dragging you from your bed and shaking you, all the while calling you by another's name. And when they discovered I was not the Fitz, they were very angry with me. Then came the earthquake and I was dropped. Down several flights of stairs. Metaphorically-speaking, of course."

  "They let you go?" I asked delightedly. I instantly turned to Kettle. "They are not as clever as you feared, then!"

  Kettle scowled at me. "Nor you as clever as I had hoped," she muttered darkly. "Did they let him go? Or did a Skill-blast shake them loose? And if so, whose power was that?"

  "Verity," I said with sudden certainty. Comprehension washed over me. "They attacked Verity tonight as well! And he defeated them!"

  "Of what do you speak?" Kettricken demanded in her Queen's voice. "Who attacked my king? What knowledge of these others who attack the Fool does Kettle have?"

  "No personal knowledge, my lady, I assure you!" I declared hastily.

  "Oh, do shut up!" Kettle snapped at me. "My queen, I have a scholar's knowledge, if you will, of one who has studied but cannot do a thing. Since Prophet and Catalyst were joined for that moment back in the plaza, I feared they might share a bond the Skill users could turn against them. But either the coterie does not know this, or something distracted them tonight. Perhaps the Skill-wave that Fitz spoke of."

  "This Skill-wave… you believe it was Verity's doing?" Kettricken's breath was suddenly swift, her color heightened.

  "Only from him have I ever felt such strength," I told her.

  "Then he lives," she said softly. "He lives."

  "Perhaps," said Kettle sourly. "To blast with Skill like that can kill a man. And it may not have been Verity at all. It may have been a failed effort by Will and Regal to get at Fitz."

  "No. I told you. It scattered them like chaff in a wind."

  "And I told you. They may have destroyed themselves in trying to kill you."

  I had thought that Kettricken would chide her, but both she and Starling stared wide-eyed in astonishment on Kettle's sudden professing of Skill knowledge. "How kind of you both to have warned me so well," the Fool said with acid courtesy.

  "I didn't know…" I began my protest, but again Kettle overrode me.

  "It would have done no good to warn you, save to put your mind to dwelling on it. We can make this comparison. It has taken all our combined effort to keep Fitz both focused and sane on the Skill road. He would never have survived his journey into the city, had not his senses been numbed with elfbark first. Yet these others travel the road and use the Skill beacons freely. Obviously their strength overmatches his by much. Ah, what to do, what to do?"

  No one replied to her questioning of herself. She looked up suddenly at the Fool and me accusingly. "This cannot be right. It simply cannot be right. The Prophet and the Catalyst, and you are scarcely more than boys. Green to manhood, untrained in Skill, full of pranks and lovesick woes. These are the ones sent to save the world?"

  The Fool and I exchanged glances, and I saw him take a breath to reply to her. But at that moment, Starling snapped her fingers. "And that is what makes the song!" she exclaimed suddenly, her face transfigured with delight. "Not a song of heroic strength and mighty-thewed warriors. No. A song of two, graced only with friendship's strength. Each possessed of a loyalty to a king that would not be denied. And that in the refrain… 'Green of manhood,' something, ah…"

  The Fool caught my eye, glanced meaningfully down at himself. "Green manhood? I really should have showed her," he said quietly. And despite everything, despite even the glowering of my queen, I burst out laughing.

  "Oh, stop it," Kettle rebuked us, with such discouragement in her voice that I was instantly sober. "It is neither the time for songs nor knavery. Are you both too foolish to see the danger you are in? The danger you put all of us in with your vulnerability?" I watched her as she reluctantly took my elfbark out of her pack again and put her kettle back to boil. "It is the only thing I can think of to do," she apologized to Kettricken.

  "What is that?" she asked.

  "To drug the Fool at least with elfbark. It will deafen him to them, and hide his thoughts from them."

  "Elfbark doesn't work like that!" I objected indignantly.

  "Doesn't it?" Kettle turned on me fiercely. "Then why was it used traditionally for years for just that purpose? Given to a royal bastard young enough, it could destroy any potential for Skill use. Often enough was that done."

  I shook my head defiantly. "I've used it for
years, to restore my strength after Skilling. So has Verity. And it has never…"

  "Sweet Eda's mercy!" Kettle exclaimed. "Tell me you are lying, please!"

  "Why should I lie about this? Elfbark revives a man's strength, though it may bring on melancholy spirits following use. Often I would carry elfbark tea up to Verity in his Skill-tower, to sustain him." My telling faltered. The dismay on Kettle's face was too sincere. "What?" I asked softly.

  "Elfbark is well known among Skilled ones as a thing to avoid," she said quietly. I heard every word, for no one in the tent even seemed to be breathing. "It deadens a man to Skill, so that he can neither use the Skill himself, nor may others reach through its fog to Skill to him. It is said to stunt or destroy Skill talent in the young, and to impede its development in older Skill users." She looked at me with pity in her eyes. "You must have been strongly talented, once, to retain even a semblance of Skilling."

  "It cannot be…" I said faintly.

  "Think," she bade me. "Did ever you feel your Skillstrength wax strong after using it?"

  "What of my lord Verity?" Kettricken suddenly demanded.

  Kettle shrugged reluctantly. She turned to me. "When did he start using it?"

  It was hard for me to focus my mind on her words. So many things were suddenly in a different light. Elfbark had always cleared my head of the pounding that heavy Skilling brought on. But I had never tried to Skill immediately after I had used elfbark. Verity had, I knew that. But how successfully, I did not know. My erratic talent for Skilling… could that have been my elfbark use? Like a lightning bolt was the immense knowledge that Chade had made a mistake in giving it to Verity and me. Chade had made a mistake. It had never occurred to me, somehow, that Chade could be wrong or mistaken. Chade was my master, Chade read and studied and knew all the old lore. But he had never been taught to Skill. A bastard like myself, he had never been taught to Skill.

  "FitzChivalry!" Kettricken's command jerked me back to myself.

  "Uh, so far as I know, Verity began to use it in the early years of the war. When he was the only Skill user to stand between us and the Red-Ships. I believe he had never used the Skill so intensely as then, nor been as exhausted by it. So Chade began to give him elfbark. To keep up his strength."

  Kettle blinked a few times. "Unused, the Skill does not develop," she said, almost to herself. "Used, it grows, and begins to assert itself, and one learns, almost instinctively, the many uses to which it may be put." I found myself nodding faintly to her soft, words. Her old eyes came up suddenly to meet mine. She spoke without reservation. "You are most likely stunted, both of you. By the elfbark. Verity, as a man grown, may have recovered. He may have seen his Skill grow in the time he has spent away from the herb. As you seem to have. Certainly he seems to have mastered the road alone." She sighed. "But I suspect those others have not used it, and their talents and usage of Skill had grown and outstripped what yours is. So now you have a choice, FitzChivalry, and only you can make it. The Fool has nothing to lose by using the drug. He cannot Skill, and by using it, he may keep the coterie from finding him again. But you… I can give you this, and it will deaden you to the Skill. It will be harder for them to reach you, and much harder for you to reach out. You might be safer that way. But you will be once more thwarting your talent. Enough elfbark may kill it off completely. And only you can choose."

  I looked down at my hands. Then I looked up at the Fool. Once more, our eyes met. Hesitantly, I groped toward him with my Skill. I felt nothing. Perhaps it was only my own erratic talent cheating me again. But it seemed likely to me that Kettle had been right; the elfbark the Fool had just drunk had deadened him to me.

  As Kettle spoke, she had been taking the kettle from the fire. The Fool held his cup out to her wordlessly. She gave him a pinch more of the bitter bark and filled it again with water. Then she looked at me, quietly waiting. I looked at the faces watching me, but found no help there. I picked up a mug from the stacked crockery. I saw Kettle's old face darken and her lips tightened, but she said nothing to me. She simply reached into the pouch of elfbark, working her fingers to get to the bottom where the bark had crushed itself into powder. I looked into the empty mug, waiting. I glanced back up at Kettle. "You said the Skillblast might have destroyed them?"

  Kettle shook her head slowly. "It is not a thing to count on."

  There was nothing I could count on. Nothing that was certain.

  Then I set the mug down and crawled over to my blankets. I was suddenly tremendously weary. And frightened. I knew Will was out there somewhere, seeking me. I could hide myself in elfbark, but it might not be enough to stave him off. It might only weaken my already stunted defenses against him. Abruptly I knew I would sleep not at all that night. "I'll take the watch," I offered and stood again.

  "He should not stand alone," Kettle said grumpily.

  "His wolf watches with him," Kettricken told her confidently. "He can aid Fitz against this false coterie as no one else can."

  I wondered how she knew that, but dared not ask her. Instead I took up my cloak and went to stand outside by the dwindling fire, watching and waiting like a condemned man.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Capelin Beach

  The Wit is held in much disdain. In many areas it is regarded as a perversion, with tales told of Witted ones coupling with beasts to gain this magic, or offering blood sacrifice of human children to gain the gift of the tongues of beasts and birds. Some tale-tellers speak of bargains struck with ancient demons of the earth. In truth, I believe the Wit is as natural a magic as a man can claim. It is the Wit that lets a flock of birds in flight suddenly wheel as one, or a school of fingerlings hold place together in a swiftly flowing stream. It is also the Wit that sends a mother to her child's bedside just as the babe is awakening. I believe it is at the heart of all wordless communication, and that all humans possess some small aptitude for it, recognized or not.

  The next day we once more reached the Skill road. As we trailed past the forbidding pillar of stone, I felt myself drawn to it. "Verity may be but one stride away for me," I said quietly.

  Kettle snorted. "Or your death. Have you taken complete leave of your senses? Do you think any one Skill user could stand against a trained coterie?"

  "Verity did," I replied, thinking of Tradeford and how he had saved me. The rest of that morning, she walked with a thoughtful look on her face.

  I did not endeavor to get her to speak, for I carried a burden of my own. I felt within me a nagging sense of loss. It was almost the irritating sensation of knowing one had forgotten something, but was unable to recall what. I had left something behind. Or I had forgotten to do something important, something I had been intending to do. By late afternoon, with a sinking feeling, I grasped what was missing.

  Verity.

  When he had been with me, I had seldom been sure of his presence. Like a hidden seed waiting to unfurl was how I had thought of him. The many times I had sought him within myself and failed to find him suddenly meant nothing. This was not a doubt or a wondering. This was a growing certainty. Verity had been with me for over a year. And now he was gone.

  Did it mean he was dead? I could not be certain. That immense wave of Skill I had felt could have been him. Or something else, something that had forced him to withdraw into himself. That was probably all it was. It was a miracle that his Skill touch upon me had lasted as long as it had. Several times I started to speak of it to Kettle or Kettricken. Each time, I could not justify it. What would I say? Before this, I could not tell if Verity was with me, and now I cannot feel him at all? At night by our fires, I studied the lines in Kettricken's face and asked myself what point there was in increasing her worry. So I pushed my worries down and kept silent.

  Continuous hardship makes for monotony and days that run together in the telling. The weather was rainy, in a fitful, windy way. Our supplies were precariously low, so that the greens we could gather as we walked and whatever meat Nighteyes and I could bring down
at night became important to us. I walked beside the road instead of on it, but remained constantly aware of its Skill-murmur, like the muttering of a river of water beside me. The Fool was kept well dosed with elfbark tea. Very soon he began to exhibit both the boundless energy and bleak spirits that were elfbark's properties. In the Fool's case, it meant endless cavorting and tumbling tricks as we made our way along the Skill road, and a cruelly bitter edge to his wits and tongue. He jested all too often of the futility of our quest, and to any encouraging remark he riposted with savage sarcasm. By the end of the second day, he reminded me of nothing so much as an ill-mannered child. He heeded no one's rebukes, not even Kettricken's, nor did he recall that silence could be a virtue. It was not so much that I feared his endless prattle and edged songs would bring the coterie down on us as that I worried his constant noise might mask their approach. Pleading with him to be quiet did me as little good as roaring at him to shut up. He wore on my nerves until I dreamed of throttling him, nor do I think I was alone in that impulse.

  The kinder weather was the only way in which our lot improved on those long days as we followed the Skill road. The rain became lighter and more intermittent. The leaves opened on the deciduous trees that flanked the road, and the hills about us greened almost over night. The health of the jeppas improved with the browse, and Nighteyes found plentiful small game. The shorter hours of sleep told on me, but letting the wolf hunt alone would not have solved it. I feared to sleep anymore. Worse, Kettle feared to let me sleep.